And it was the end of the world
by Idiosyncratic Enigma
Summary: After the show ended, what happened to these characters? Did they escape Germany? Find love? What choices did they make during the show that affected their life after the show ended? My interpretation of what happened to Ernst, Cliff, Sally, Schultz, and Schneider. COMPLETE
1. Ernst

Prompt: Beginning  
Note: About a year ago, I stage managed a production of Cabaret. The characters were complex and layered, and during the run I began to wonder what happened to these characters, and how did the war affect them? Here's my take on what happened to Ernst.  
Note 2: This is part of my 101 writing prompt challenge.

* * *

It was the beginning of the end. Our leader knew everything. His politics were correct, and I steadfastly believed in them and in him. I had to. If I was not a member of his army, I would be one of them. He hated them. No, I was not a Jew. Just as bad, or even worse. I was gay. Not that I ever told anyone that. I couldn't. I would suffer an even worse death. The gays had more tests done on them, to figure out what was wrong with them. If I never told anyone, if I just kept it all to myself, then nobody else had to know. I would be safe. Or so I thought.

In the beginning, I believed in everything. That Jews were bad, the mentally insane were dangerous, and that the blondes were the ones that needed to be the majority. Jews did not follow the religion of the country, and for that they should be punished. I had to talk a dear friend out of marrying because her husband to be was a Jew. Not only did I have a somewhat new but profound dislike for the man because of his religious beliefs, but I could not allow my friend to encounter the same fate as him. At the time, I did not know the lengths to which our leader would go in order to rid our country of filth. I knew it would be bad. I knew there would be deaths, as there always are in a war.

But then things got out of hand. Too many people were dying. My part in his regime did not feel right anymore. People were carted off, tortured, and killed. The scent of death filled the air, stuck in your nostrils for months. The burning of flesh is not a smell one can easily forget.

In the beginning, I was in charge of a camp, which lasted for about twelve months. We had to be ruthless. I, especially, because of my secret. I had to watch everything I did, lest I give myself away. I got married to a woman. She supported me in my politics. But unlike me, she felt the actions of our leader were justified. She loved hearing stories of the camp, and what poor Jewish child I tortured, or what elderly woman I denied food. Or how I saw kids covered in their own shit because the toilets were too full. I had to fake my own glee when relating them to her. I hated myself for it. I hated that I had signed up for something so macabre and was in so deep that I could not turn around and get out of it without losing my life or being exiled from my homeland.

After my stint at the camp, I was transferred to the group of men that would go into houses and look for Jews in hiding. I would also be forced to take the family that was helping them. I was fairly successful and became known to my leader by name. I knew in the circle I was that it was a big deal. But I could not find happiness in him knowing that I was excellent at finding Jews and throwing them and their families, in addition to the host family, into a camp, to almost certain death. It did not make me feel like a good person. Some nights I was on patrol duty, and every now and then a Jewish child would scurry home past curfew. Sometimes Jewish parents worked late, or were delayed in getting home. Frequently, if I were alone, I would allow them to go on their way and I would pretend not to notice.

Soon it became too much to bear. I started hating myself. I divorced my wife but to keep up appearances I took up with another women. She was somewhat hiding as well. She was vocal in her support of the Nazis. However, she liked women in the same way in which I liked men. She would host bridge two to three times a week and one of those women would stay late. I'm not positive what they did, but I know it gave my wife pleasure that I could not provide. It was easy to get away with it. To the neighbors and our friends the woman was a dear, close friend. People didn't bat an eye.

For me, it was a bit harder. I did find someone, a Nazi like me. While taking a community shower, I noticed him eyeing another soldier, trying to be sly. I noticed how he got aroused and covered it up by washing. After seeing this occur a few times, I invited him out for a drink. There, he confessed he preferred men over women, and I cautiously told him I did as well. After several hours of talking, we agreed we would try to secretly meet up. We knew it was risky, but we wanted to try anyway.

I broke the news to my wife, who was thrilled I had also found someone. We devised a plan. There was a shady hotel on the outskirts of town. Far enough out where Nazis did not patrol. She and I would arrive at different times and each request our own hotel room. We would meet in the bar at a set time to let the other know the room number. We would then make calls to our respective lover and give them the room number. Except we had another step in case the concierge was keeping tabs. I would give my lover my room number, but instruct him to tell the concierge he was going to my wife's room. We believed this was the safest way to carry on as we wanted.

The first few months of our plan worked like a charm. We met up no fewer than twice a week. Soon we began to fear we had raised suspicions with the concierge. So we began to travel from hotel to hotel, but always stayed at our main hotel once a week. Our predictability was what led us to our downfall. How quickly our lives fell apart.

* * *

It is a day in late April. I am with my lover per our usual agreement. My wife is two doors down with hers. Suddenly, our door is knocked down and our tiny room is filled with angry, yelling Nazis. I am roughly thrown against a wall, handcuffed, and hauled off, naked. I don't know what happened to my lover; I only assume he will suffer the same fate as I. He and I are not taken to the same place. I also do not know what happened to my wife, if her room was raided as well. Despite our arrangement, I do love her. I hope she is able to get out of the country. I want her to be safe.

I am stripped of my Nazi badge and without a trial of any sort, am thrown into a crowded cart filled with Jews, gays, and the disabled. I am taken to a camp, very much like the one I patrolled a few years prior.

I, along with another man and two women, am taken during the day to a doctor - I use this word loosely - who tries to figure out what is wrong with us - what part of our brain makes us like the same sex instead of the opposite sex. It is torture in its purest form. We are poked, prodded, have all sorts of horrendous experiments done to us, and are forced to perform all sorts of sexual acts with one another. At the end of the day, we are sent back into the camp where we have to work at for least three hours. We are fed so little, we may not be fed at all.

The screams I always heard in my former days as a Nazi soldier I now experience first hand. I am one of them. After several months of torture, work, beatings, and very little nourishment, I no longer desire to fight to live. I don't know when or if we will ever be saved. The prospect that someone would come in and get rid of the Nazis quickly becomes a pipe dream. I now desire for my life to just end. I want the pain and torture and misery to be over. I want to not sleep in a room built for four but packed with thirty. I want to sleep on something softer than the hard packed floor or rocks. I want to be able to sleep laying down. I want to not be experimented on, to not be tortured, to not be beaten on a daily basis. I pray for God to forgive me and to release me from this life.

After nearly a year of suffering, the doctors render my disposition helpless. My rock breaking services are no longer needed. My body no longer is needed for experimentation. I, along with several hundred of my fellow prisoners, are led into a giant chamber. I know what is going to happen. I had led a long line of prisoners to a similar fate myself. Everyone else in line knows it too. Many are frantic. Some attempt escape and are executed on the spot. Others cry, say prayers. As a Nazi, I remember thinking that it was useless, that no God was not going to save them in these last moments. As a prisoner, I welcome it. The end of my suffering. I do not weep, I do not try to escape.

How funny it is that only a few years ago was I celebrating with dear friends. That life, while still dark, still had hope. I wondered what happened to my friends in the Kit Kat Klub. Was Sally still singing in night clubs, with a bunch of scantily clad women behind her? Was Fraulien Kost still entertaining men for money? Did Schneider heed my advice? If so, what was she doing? And Schultz? Did he make it out of Germany, or did he suffer the same fate as so many Jews? As me? And Cliff. My dear buddy Cliff. Not a day goes by that I do not miss him or think of him. I'm glad he escaped back home to America. I wonder what my life would have been like had we not met on the train. Would I be here?

As I am led into a giant chamber, amidst sobbing men, women, and children, I stand alone, emotionless, stone faced. As the smoke begins to fill the air, I allow my mind to go back to the day Cliff and I first met on that fateful train ride into Germany. Cliff is the last thing I think of as smoke clouds my mind and I gradually lose consciousness. I welcome darkness and death, for now I am free.


	2. Cliff

Prompt: Middle  
My take on what happened to Cliff.

* * *

When I first returned to America, I wrote my book. And then I hid it. I couldn't bear to constantly be reminded of what I lost. For the first few years of the war, I blacked everything out. I couldn't handle it. I couldn't think about Sally, about our child. How I could be a father to a toddler had she not gone through with it. How we could still be together, here, in America. Safe from the cruelties of the Nazis. For the first few years I couldn't escape it. Everywhere I went were stories of more horrors of the Nazis and their hideous leader. I didn't want to think that my friends could be victims to their hatred, moreso that Ernst could believe their politics and become one of them.

So, I blocked it all out as best as I could. Then, a few years later, things changed. I ventured out. I met someone. Margaret. We fell in love. I was hesitant at first, because of the pain from Sally. I didn't think I could trust someone again. But Margaret was the complete opposite from Sally. She was reliable, came from a good family. She didn't smoke or drink. She didn't spend nights at clubs where she had a tenuous relationship with the owner. To her, I wasn't a passing fancy, someone to occupy her mind and her bed until I went away and the next person came along. She hated being in front of crowds and couldn't carry a tune. Where Sally was adventurous, Maggie preferred to be on the conservative side. Where Sally was selfish, Maggie was selfless. In short, I couldn't have found someone more different and more perfect.

In June of 1939 we married, amidst the horrors coming in from Germany. I felt blessed that I escaped the horror that was simmering under the surface at the end of my trip there. I couldn't help but wonder how my friends were faring. Something Schultz told me in our last days stuck with me, and nearly daily broke my heart. "It is nothing. It will pass." Three years later and it had not passed yet. I hoped he had the sense to get out of there while he could. Perhaps he made it to Switzerland, or France, or England, or even here in America. I thought about him every time news came with a higher death toll. It was hard to forget my past when it was persistent and evident in my daily life.

Maggie and I didn't waste any time having children. By March 1940 we had a son, who took my name. A mere 10 months later we had a daughter, Caroline. A year later, we had twins, a boy and a girl. Matthew and Abigail. My family and life felt complete.

By this point, I had forgotten about the life I could have had with Sally, even with the news of the war consistently flowing in. She rarely crossed my mind, except when someone mentioned that name. My curiosity of the others also waned. I did think about them once in a while, but I was completely invested in my family and my four beautiful children. My life in Germany seemed so long ago.

It wasn't until Hitler fell from power, the Nazis were disbanded, and the remaining Jews and prisoners freed that I was able to revisit that part of my life. I brought out my book, dusty and yellowed from being in the attic for so many years. I told Maggie about my life in Germany and I hesitantly allowed her to read what I had written.

For three days she locked herself in our room, pouring over the pages I wrote. On the fourth day she came down the stairs with tears running down her cheeks. She had no idea what went on in Germany. The tears were not because I had relations and a potential child with someone else. They were from the experiences, the people, and the utter devastation that laid in wait. How Schultz's words "it is fine. It will pass" were so heart-wrenching now that it had now been over five years. It did pass, but not as quickly or as painlessly as he expected. She cried over the friendships lost, of the lives likely lost, and the shock that I had been there in the thick of it.

She urged me to publish it. That there was nothing to hide or fear now that the war was open. How many people would have a story such as mine? Who had been there, in the middle of it all? Who had seen the slow decline of basic human rights and the start of the ascent to the horrors that would encapsulate the country for the next several years? Few was her answer. Fewer still who were writers. And even fewer still who had a story like mine. People would want to know what it was like to be over there in the middle of the Nazi's rise to power, just before all hell broke loose. People will want to read it, she encouraged me.

So I listened to her. I found a publisher who agreed with my wife. And shortly after that I had several thousand people who agreed with my publisher and my wife. I didn't go on to write another book. It was too hard. My life was too normal. I had a wife and a family, so I couldn't run off to another country for inspiration. My story was only fascinating because of the circumstances, and how I just happened to be in Germany when I did. My life was perfect and I didn't need fame or fortune. I would always be a writer, but now I wrote stories for my children, and only for them.


	3. Sally

Prompt: End

Note: After stage managing a production of Cabaret, I began to wonder what happened to these characters, and how did the war affect them? Here's my take on what happened to Sally.

Despite my flippant attitude, the day that Cliff left was the hardest day of my life. Part of me wanted to go screaming after him, but I couldn't. He changed me, as much as anyone ever could. I think we really could have had a wonderful life together - if we had been in different places in our lives. He was so innocent. I don't think he was ready for that kind of life. I knew I wasn't. I wasn't cut out to be a mother and despite my efforts to explain it to him, Cliff either didn't understand why or he refused to. At nineteen and twenty, I didn't want to be tied down to a husband and children. I couldn't even see myself like that at age thirty. There was so much life to be lived, so many places to see, so many men to love. I couldn't do that with Cliff and a baby.

After Cliff left I disappeared for a few days. Despite what he thought, I did care for him tremendously. Him leaving left a hole in my heart. And despite how I carelessly told him I had an abortion, it also left a hole in my heart. Abortions were never fun, but those other times I didn't have a connection to the baby or the father like I did with Cliff. However, I truly believe that I was not cut out for motherhood. I couldn't stay in one place for a long time, that's how it always had been. Even as a child we moved every other year, or even multiple times a year. It became normal. When I left home I traveled all over England, the Netherlands, and Spain before settling in Germany. The pay was nice and I had made friends.

Even before Cliff left I was feeling like it was almost time to go somewhere new. With the impending war, it seemed as good of a time as any. But shortly after I returned to the Kit Kat Klub Max made me an offer I couldn't refuse, so I agreed to stay on. Our main clients were Nazis, or so it seemed. That bright red armband glowed in the darkness that I could see from the stage.

I was never good at keeping track of time. It could have been weeks or months, but my night life revolved around the club and my daily life around sleeping, drinking, smoking, and entertaining Max. After a year or two I went to another part of Germany, then to Austria, and then to the Netherlands again. In between each stop I would go back to the Klub. It felt the most like home. Max would allow me to perform for the week or two I was there, and then I would be off again on another great adventure. Finally, I returned to Berlin for good. First I went to another club for about nine months before it closed, and I went crawling back to Max for what seemed like the hundredth time. He took me back, of course, but I had to work my way back to the top. He didn't like that I left him for another club, and was quite smug that his was still open even without me. It took over a year, but I finally regained my title. Attendance grew with the news I was back, but nowhere near it was pre-war.

It was the late 30s when things really started to go downhill. I was getting closer to thirty and Max was beginning to tire of me. He fired me, saying that people didn't want to see someone as old as me as the lead performer.

I had no skills. I didn't know how to cook or sew or any of the other things the tyrant demanded of an acceptable woman. I was not allowed to work because I was a woman, anyway. But I couldn't survive without some form of income and men, proper men, found me to be too old to wed. With no other choice, I turned to the streets. Men looking for comfort of the female body weren't as picky as men looking for wives, and to be honest, I wasn't picky either. I easily found work, but it was tricky. I had to be careful who I approached, lest they be a Nazi or a Nazi sympathizer. If I was found out, I could be taken to one of the camps I had heard so much about, first hand accounts of the soldiers who worked there for a year or two and then returned to Berlin. I would observe the men from a safe spot in the back of the bar. If I did not see a flash of red I would approach. I would suggest my intent and he would agree, and we would go to a back alley where we would make arrangements.

One night the man never took off his coat. A Nazi. Just merely being me I had committed several crimes, according to our leader. I was not blonde or blue-eyed, so I did not fit his description of an ideal Aryan German. Even though I was not German, I was living in the country and had to abide by those rules. My skin was darker, having Greek and Bulgarian ancestry. I was not married and I did not have children. Married women with children did not have sex for money. I was working, I wore heels, and I wore makeup. And worse, I found myself allied with the group of women who denounced these laws. Not that I was on their level - all of them were doctors and lawyers - but I still found his views on women to be degrading and unfair.

With so many strikes against me - many of them being obvious, such as my attire and looks - the Nazi arrested me. When it was discovered that not only I did not have a family (and never did) but I was also a member of an opposing women's group, I was tossed in a camp specifically for women. I had to wear an awful uniform with a black triangle sewn onto the sleeve. It identified me as a prostitute and unmarried. I was one of the few that had a second triangle, a green one, for committing the crime of abortion. My head was shaved and I was thrown into heavy labor since I had no sewing skills, which is what the majority of the prisoners were required to do.

My background in performance and leading a rather frivolous life, the labor was incredibly hard on me. I struggled and fell behind, and was frequently beaten or forced to go without food. It was impossible to sleep in cramped quarters, with so many women crying softly. I cried, too. For the life I left behind, for what I could have had and just threw away as though opportunities like that were plentiful.

I lasted three months at the camp. Ultimately I was deemed week and useless and was sent to Auschwitz. I lasted ten days there before I was shuffled into a giant chamber with hundreds of others. I had given up. I didn't have the strength to fight, to run, to survive. My final thoughts before I left the world were "Oh Cliff, I hope you are having a marvelous time and I hope you found a marvelous girl. I'm sorry it couldn't be me."


	4. Schultz

Prompt: Inside

* * *

How silly of me to think that this would just quickly pass. That everything would quickly go back to normal. That perhaps Fraulein Schneider and I would still have a chance. I did love her. Older people can still fall in love, and we deserve to, as well. We were a perfect match. Sadly, not everyone felt that way.

Everything fell apart quickly after Cliff went back to America. Sally stayed at the Klub for a while before packing up and leaving in the middle of the night. Fraulein forced Kost out and she moved into a boarding house a few miles away. it became too awkward for me to stay in the same building as Fraulein and not be able to see her or converse with her. I also felt uncomfortable with Ernst knowing where I lived, especially with his growing hatred of Jewish people and his alliance with that awful man.

I moved, as I said I would. Not far enough away. I kept to myself and didn't go out except to buy groceries. I had sold my store before things got too ugly, so I had plenty of money to tide me over until it passed. The markets and stores that would sell to me were subpar. Their produce wasn't nearly as fresh and flavorful as mine, but I could not complain. I had managed to live almost ten years in my tiny little apartment without notice. Then one day there was violent knocking on my door. I had to produce papers to show I was Jewish and I was forbidden to do a whole host of things. I had a curfew, could only shop at certain places, and was not allowed to share anything with my non-Jewish Germans. To identify me in a crowd, I was forced to wear a yellow patch on all my clothing. If I didn't, I could be deported.

Perhaps it was because I had turned into an optimist. Or maybe I just didn't want to run, or try to run. The yellow patch was irritating and I did not like being bossed around by these cruel soldiers. I did not like the tyrant's view of my people, who before this were the same as everyone else with different beliefs. How someone could show such hatred to us baffled me.

By now it was too late to run, to try and escape into Denmark or Spain or another neutral country. I was stuck here, so I should make the best out of it. I would follow orders, keep a low profile, and just wait for it to pass. It had to eventually.

One day I was returning home from buying groceries. Perhaps the people I saw were too afraid to tell me. It was the first day it had gotten cold. I was wearing my heavy coat, one that I had not sewn the star onto just yet. I had forgotten. My memory lapse was my downfall. I didn't even make it to my building before two soldiers blocked my path. They asked where I was going, where I had been, and why did I not have my patch on since they knew I was Jewish. They berated me, and my calm answers only added fuel to their fire. They took turns hitting me, my fresh fruit squashed all over the road and sidewalk. Then they took me by the scruff of my neck and all but dragged me to a synagogue. Surely they were taking me there to denounce my religion and to spare my life. I would not be so lucky.

My papers, which I was always required to have with me, were handed to a cruel looking Nazi behind a table. He nodded toward a door and I was taken through it. There I was stripped of all my belongings and given a uniform and a new pair of shoes. I had to change right in front of them. When I was done my hands were tied and my legs were hobbled. I was then lead into the Hekhal.

There were easily one thousand people crammed in there, maybe more. Some of them had been there for days and had not been given the opportunity to bathe. A few had gotten sick on themselves and it was still there. The stench of sickness and uncleanliness hung in the air and invaded my nostrils. This was the first time I actually felt afraid.

I was there for almost a week. Every day more people were brought in. A few people died while I was there. Mainly from the living conditions but a couple by beatings from the guards. We did not know what was in store for us but we all knew it could not be good. We knew the Jews were being taken somewhere, but we didn't know where and we didn't truly know the specifics of what went on. If we did, I'm sure most of us would have left years ago when security wasn't as tight, or we would have killed ourselves.

After about five or so days we were herded into boxcars. There were thirty of us in mine, all of us squeezed together, shoulder to shoulder. The lucky ones were able to sit against the wall of the car, the rest hunched uncomfortably in the middle. No one spoke; we were all too afraid.

Finally, after hours of traveling, the train stopped. We had been sealed in the car and didn't know how long we had been there or if it was day or night. We had all soiled ourselves because there was nowhere else to go and the train never stopped. We were in Poland, I was sure of it. Before us was a tall, barbed wire fence, surrounding an area within the city of Lodz. Inside were tiny houses, shacks, and apartments. It already seemed pretty crowded.

We got off the cars in a single file line and were taken to a large entrance. They were checking us in and assigning us housing. A man tried to run away and was shot in the back. In the chaos and shock, another man tried to run the opposite way and he was shot as well. The soldiers yelled at us, threatening us, saying they would shoot anyone who stepped out of the line or maybe even just for fun.

Finally it was my turn. I received my living assignment and two changes of clothes. My job would be in the factory running the button machine for German uniforms. I was informed that I would now be on the Jew diet, a meager three hundred calories a day. Three pieces of bread, a cup of fruit. How long would I survive?

The people in my apartment were herded together and then marched to our location. It was a tiny two room apartment with no kitchen or bathroom. There were about twenty of us.

I made it four months before I was determined to be useless. Skin was hanging off my bones from lack of nourishment. The button machines had ripped my hands up. I had no strength. And by their standards, I was old. I was herded into the back of a truck with fifty or so other people. Mostly older men like myself, several sick people, and many children, ripped away from their parents. Most of them cried the entire drive, which took about two hours.

But then we arrived at a lovely estate, surrounded by the forest. We were taken to the courtyard of the main house, where men in white coats greeted us. We were going back to Germany, they said, to be laborers there. Perhaps living conditions would be better and be fed more food. We had to bathe first, and the maids at the house would wash our clothes. It would feel wonderful to have clean clothes against my skin, to be rid of my own filth and all the fleas and flies. The men were led into one room and we handed our things to a man who labeled them. Then we were taken into the cellar, where large showers were installed. I couldn't complain. After months of not showering, I didn't care it was in a large shower with other men. We were led into the room and the door was closed.

That was when I realized we were lied to. We were not going to take a shower. We were not going back to Germany. I felt a rumble beneath my feet and several seconds later the air became thick. We started coughing, then wheezing. I heard bodies hit the floor, the terrified half-shrieks, half-wheezes from the men still standing around me. Then I felt light headed and I struggled to keep my eyes open, even though I couldn't see anything. I was quickly losing the battle. After a few more seconds I gave up. I fell on something soft and before I lost consciousness I caught a whiff of something sweet. Pineapple.


	5. Schneider

Prompt: Outside

* * *

Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I had married Schultz. Would we have left Germany? I would like to think so. But what would it be like, to spend our lives running? I wondered what would have happened if we stayed. Would I be safe because I was not Jewish? Would he be safe because of that? Or would we both be taken away because of it?

I was not proud of my decision. I cared for him deeply. We would have been a good match if we lived in another time or in another place. How unfortunate it was that we were stuck living where we were? If there had been more time to think about it, if things weren't getting so ugly, if fear wasn't simmering under the surface of everyone and everything. So many ifs. I wish I had been braver. I wish I stayed by his side and that I convinced him to go to America or England. Somewhere other than Germany and the terror that surely awaited him. I wished I hadn't run.

After he left my building I never saw him again. Not in physical form, that is. He was in my dreams. I felt his presence when he was nowhere to be found. I saw him in the fruit I bought. Sometimes his scent would waft up and surprise me, from my bed or his soap or the coffee he drank. I thought about him often. I wondered if he made it out of Germany in time. He still had a couple of years before the borders were patrolled or the Nazis really took control. If he stayed put, he was certainly found to be Jewish. I hated to think of him walking around with that yellow star on everything he wore. He hated labels. He saw himself as a German man, like any other man in our country. I'm sure he would feel stripped of his dignity. I imagined him wearing it with a quiet resignation, trying to keep a low profile so he would not be shipped off.

The thought of him being sent to one of those camps sickened me. The thought of anyone, really, but his was the only face I knew. The torture, the conditions... I had heard about so much and I could just not fathom how one person could have such hatred towards others, how he could convince so many people that his way was the right way. And how millions of people let it happen. We had no choice. People who openly opposed him were also sent to the camps, or more likely, taken somewhere and executed. What else could we do?

For the first few years of the war I maintained my boarding house. Kost had long since left since her transgressions were frowned upon and the Nazi soldiers were my main source of business. I felt like a traitor. I smiled and provided excellent hospitality. I wished them good day and good night. I listened if they spoke of their duties and nodded politely as though agreeing when the spoke of their revered leader. Luckily, this was acceptable as I was a woman and not seen as an equal.

But then there were the laws. I had to bear a child and if I couldn't I could be sent off. I was not allowed to work. Having worked my whole life I would not stand for it, and I was too old to bear children. I had to leave. I had nothing left in Berlin anymore. I knew it was getting ugly and I had to act fast. They were already starting to herd Jews into ghettos in the middle of the city or into various buildings. I watched from the street on day as they lined up to go into a synagogue. I wondered for the hundredth time if Schultz was one of them, or if he perhaps was able to escape, as I was.

I bought a train ticket to Spain. Once there I would buy a boat ticket to cross the Channel into England. I would be safe there, away from Berlin. Away from the rule of this monster. He had already invaded Poland and I knew he would not risk invading Spain or England, so I knew I was safe in both countries. I just had to hope I could manage to stay until it was all over.

At every stop a man would come into the car and check our luggage, as though we were smuggling people over the border in our bags. Mine consisted of my few possessions - five dresses, hose, two pairs of shoes, and undergarments. Another bag held my money, identification papers to prove I was not Jewish, and a book. To the average person, I would look as though I was taking a week's vacation. My other possessions remained behind. I was able to quietly sell my home and before I left I sewed some of the money in the lining of my clothes so I would not arouse suspicion by carrying so much money.

I made it out of Germany without so much as a second glance from the officers on the train. I looked out the window and watched the countryside fly past me as I escaped. Once in France I found a boarding house much like my own, and stayed there for two nights while I bought a ticket to Spain and a few extra items I didn't remember to bring with me. I kept to myself those nights. I walked around the city, admiring architecture, historical sites, gardens. Anything to keep me moving and to keep my mind busy. On the third morning I boarded the train to Spain and I stayed there one evening before leaving for England on a boat. I had a stop in Ireland for one night, and finally arrived in England.

I found another boarding house in a quiet neighborhood not far from the heart of the city. Much like I did in Berlin, my landlady did not ask questions.

As soon as she closed my door and left, I set my bags on the floor and turned in a circle in the middle of my room. My new home. There were a lot of things to get used to in England. As I realized the magnitude of what I had done, what my life would now be like, and what I had left behind, everything hit me like I had run into a brick wall.

I washed my face, hoping that somehow that would calm me down or keep the tears at bay. It didn't work. I crumbled to the floor by the sink, crying for everything I had been through and everything I had lost. My home, my family, my friends, and my love. I was terrified of starting over, especially at my age, and I wished that I had done this sooner and that Schultz was here with me.

I cried for what felt like hours, emotions pouring out of me, unstoppable. Finally I stood, washed my face, and climbed into bed. Tomorrow was a new day, with new possibilities. It might be scary, but at least it was better than waking up in Berlin.


End file.
